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Topic: Bio-fuel bike is gallons greener (Read 6818 times)

A LEDBURY motorbike enthusiast has done his bit for the planet by converting a classic motorbike to run on bio-fuel.

Trevor Williams, of the New Mills estate, took advice from local companies Dual Sport Motorcycles and Intime Engineering to install a special diesel engine into the 500 CC Royal Enfield Bullet motorbike.

The bike is now being run in on bio-fuel he buys from Bransford Bio-Fuels Ltd at around 92p a gallon, compared to around £1 for diesel.

Mr Williams said the fuel was recycled from cooking oil and its use in his bike has doubled the miles to the gallon that the Enfield can manage up to an impressive 160 miles.

Mr Williams added: "You do get a drop in performance. Top speed is about 65 miles an hour and you do smell like a chip-shop when you go up the road.

"But the bike is carbon neutral. The only carbon it gives out is that which the plants have taken in, during their growing life.

"I care very much about the environment and I am very keen on recycling. If we don't all sort something out soon, we'll all be in trouble."

Now the self-employed mechanic is considering offering to convert other bikes to bio-fuels as a service.

Mr Williams himself has been considering doing a conversion for 20 years, but gained his final inspiration while watching Dick Strawbridge on the television show It's Not Easy Being Green.

Mr Williams said: "I thought, if you can convert a car to bio-fuels, why not a bike?"

The stunning motorbike he picked, though a classic 1950's design, is only two years old because the Enfield company in India carried on making them, after the British company closed.

Anyone interested in Mr Williams converting their bike to bio-fuel can contact him on 01531 634485.

That's awesome! There's really no reason that the bike couldn't be geared to run at highway speeds, but the problem is that the deisel engine has such a narrow power band that you're shifting every second until you get into top gear, then it just pulls right along. A better solution would be a CVT like a scooter or a snowmobile has. Not that I'm some Greenie, but I would love it if we could find a way to stop buying oil from people that want to kill us!

I would be tempted to own a diesel motorcycle, but I do not think I would want to convert one I already had. I have a single cylinder diesel walking tractor, that has masses of power - just a bear to start in the cold, and only chugs along at very low revs. It probably would fit in an Enfield, and work really well - geared better, it would probably push the bike around at 50.

I got diesel fuel instead of high-test last month at a station in Tennessee, some sort of mix-up with the pump. My beemer ran for 200 miles on it and only smoked when I gave it lots of gas. At 3 bucks a gallon I was to cheap to drain it until I got home. Does this mean that I am green.........Dew.

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If it hurts, you're not dead yet!!!!!

gapl53

Now for the devils advocate in me. I've talked to a few of the timber cutters and a couple of farmers that I know tried it. They all had about the same answer. Which I found surprising, because they usually don't agree on much.It cost less to buy, but they used about 1/3 more Bio-fuel per hour to operate.It smelled better than running Diesel fuel.It takes more energy to produce than Diesel.They all went back to Diesel to operate there machines.Take it for what it's worth.

Huh. One of my buds here at work converted his big-a$$ F-250 to run on pure waste vegetable oil, and he reports better mpg than with deisel. Maybe it's in how its used, or maybe using WVO just produces better mpg than the refined bio-diesel.

The problem comes in finding fairly clean waste veg oil to run; i.e. You can't pull into Kwik-Trip and get any out of the pump, and you can't go through the drive-up window at McDonalds and ask them for what's currently in the fryer.

You can make your own bio-diesel, but again, you need a consistent supply for the oil to refine, and you've effectively limited yourself to filling up at home, so your range is cut down considerably; no vacations out of state running this stuff.

E85 isn't any better. The farmers burn diesel in order to grow the corn, so it's no greener that way. You have to burn more to go the same number of miles, so it isn't much greener that way. You have to plan any trips you want to take around knowing where E85 is sold, and as near as I can tell, how available it is is directly proportional to how far you drive away from Minnesota. So your range is again limited to one half tank past that last E85 station.

At this point, it's really not worth it to me to become "green". Until the infrastructure is there, and the price comes down to make it equal or less than gasoline in terms of cost per mile, I'll stick with the gasoline.

gapl53

Huh. One of my buds here at work converted his big-a$$ F-250 to run on pure waste vegetable oil, and he reports better mpg than with deisel. Maybe it's in how its used, or maybe using WVO just produces better mpg than the refined bio-diesel.

I think you are right on how it's used. These are all heavy work types, and they did mention that it seamed that they were not getting the same power out of the equipment with the Bio.I guess i should have mentioned this in the first post. Thanks for reminding me Robb.

Well fuel costs here in the UK have taken another jump due to our "added green environment tax" from the government or some other bl%dy excuse to put up the cost.

My local garage is now charging diesel and regular unleaded fuel the same price. It works out at (by the time the lires is converted) to 8.13 dollars per US gallon. Not good eh? Wish I had Stateside fuel costs here in UK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And here in the states, I object to paying over $3.00 a gallon. When I came to this country to live, fuel was 69 cents a gallon, and that was not all that long ago - 1992, so the increase in only 15 years is unbelievable - the most I have seen locally for Premium is $3.75. I would be walking a lot if I had to pay $8.13 for a gallon.

Well fuel costs here in the UK have taken another jump due to our "added green environment tax" from the government or some other bl%dy excuse to put up the cost.

My local garage is now charging diesel and regular unleaded fuel the same price. It works out at (by the time the lires is converted) to 8.13 dollars per US gallon. Not good eh? Wish I had Stateside fuel costs here in UK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have been fortunate to enjoy such low fuel costs on this side of the pond. I appreciate it every time I fill up and recognize that we citizens of the US have no special right to cheap gasoline. I'm also glad that my state government (Virginia) doesn't pile-on additional "gas taxes" like our neighboring state Maryland and the District of Columbia. They always pay more than us due to government taxing.

So far the cost of gas hasn't changed most of our driving habits very much. We're still driving our big heavy SUVs, our big heavy pick-up trucks, and our low-gas-mileage minivans. I see lines and lines of gas guzzlers waiting to pick up kids at school events - motors and A/C running for up to 30 minutes! Bizarre. We're still flying down the freeways at 10-20 mph above the speed limit. You can't convince me that the average soccer Mom is impacted by the 'high' cost of gas. (OK, off the soapbox...)

There are some (myself included) who are driving motorcycles and purchasing smaller econo-boxes to drive but I think we're still the exception and not the rule.

I'd guess that most people won't really change much in their driving habits until gas gets over $5/gallon US (this swag based on discussions with coworkers and friends). Of course that's only a matter of time since prices will only go up. Gas is like most other products, and that's what supply and demand is all about. We depend on our water, electricity and food as much as we do gas. The biggest difference is that we aren't dependent on foreign suppliers for those other commodities.

The great gas mileage of the Royal Enfield is certainly a selling point, but I don't think it is the deciding factor for the vast majorty of our customers. Although I do think the sales of large SUV's is down. I agree that gas will have to get a lot more expensive before we Americans change. It sure would be nice to be less dependant upon people who want to kill us for our energy.

I got diesel fuel instead of high-test last month at a station in Tennessee, some sort of mix-up with the pump. My beemer ran for 200 miles on it and only smoked when I gave it lots of gas. At 3 bucks a gallon I was to cheap to drain it until I got home. Does this mean that I am green.........Dew.[/quote No, just tight ]

Geez we'd LOVE 5 dollars a gallon this side of the pond!!!!! You won't change your driving habits much when it goes up. You just end up paying more to do it that's all with less left for other things!!!!!

I have done much less driving, and riding, since the price went up over $3.00. I don't like paying that much, and don't have a flexible income to cover it's cost. I am staying in Indiana this winter, because I can't afford to tow my trailer to Arizona, where it is warm - injuries sustained whilst serving have caught up with me, and my joints complain about the abuse they got. It is much worse in the cold, so usually I go to Arizona, or a coast for the warmer than Indiana weather. ( I have owned this house for three years - this month is my seventh of residence, not all together - the longest I have been here is four months. )

LJRead

We pay about $5/imperial gallon here - there is about a twenty percent difference, I believe, in this gallon versus the one in the U.S. So we pay perhaps $4 per U.S. gallon and it has to be brought in. Britains high rates would really bug me if I lived there because England has the big oil field.

I will seriously consider converting the AVL 350 to diesel when the engine starts wearing out. The Chinese clones of the Yamaha diesel seem to be very good and, having read conversion details on the web, it all seems fairly straight forward to convert. They use the same trany, just replace the engine and engine mounting system. But our speed limit in Tonga is only a little over 40 mph and, it is a pleasant enough speed to drive at given road conditions and the short distances traveled.

Producing copra for coconut oil used to be one of the largest industries here. There was a guy here a few years back trying to sell a newly invented machine for extracting the oil, getting a very pure product. There are still a lot of coconut trees here, although many are being cut down and shipped to Japan as timber (sound familiar?). You used to be able to buy a gunnysack full of copra (dried coconut meat) for just a couple dollars, U.S., but I don't know how much oil you'd get out of a bag.

Neat, but I'd really like to see some, any, performance stats on a converted to diesel enfield. If you look on the web there are lots of them , particularly in Europe. How many horsepower is the engine? Is it less than 22? I for one would not want any less than that. If it is less ( which is what I suspect) Where would you ride it,slow city traffic?

I do not believe that you will get a small one cylinder diesel that will also not vibrate the bike to an extent that bits from the bike keep falling off,,,electrical connections keep getting broken etc etc. And diesel emissions are not particularly good news either.

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geoffbaker

Just for your information, I bought my military RE in February with the goal of converting it to run on biodiesel. I have the kit produced by Henry Price in England, and got a Yanmar clone 10hp engine off ebay. I'm going to run the RE around town for the next month or so, then make the conversion.

I fully expect to get over 200mpg with it, based on what I've seen... and that outperforms a gas engine by such a large factor that other issues (more particulates, more smell, more energy to produce) fall by the wayside.

I'm also hooking up some technology - a mpg meter from veypor, a cyl temp gauge from Dokata Digital, and some vapor injection... in the hopes of getting over 300mpg.

By every statistic I've read, biofuels are the best choice when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions - you will use less and generate less waste emissions per mile travelled than any other form of transportation on earth.

I doubt if things are going to vibrate any worse than they do on my fine 2000 Enfield "thumper", as is...

Look forward to reading about the conversion Geoff.Now wonder you went with the LED conversions in the other thread. Can't have that alternator robbing even a tiny bit of the engines hp when it is that limited to start with!!!

Henry P was the guy I bought my straight through header/silencer from!